learning

At 34 I consider myself an old dog. Realistically speaking, half my life could be over. While I do strive to self-improve and not make the same mistakes twice I know that underneath it all I am always the same person and I just can't learn new tricks without a whole lot of sedatives.

I've been back in Massachusetts 9 months. During this gestational period (haha) I've learned a lot about myself, what I need and what I want. When I look back on how I felt when I was preparing to move here, it's obvious that all I was really thinking about was getting the hell out of SoCal. It's not that I didn't want to come to Massachusetts; I did. It's just that I needed to get out of SoCal more. I could not (and cannot still) separate SoCal from the Mess. I think about visiting and those old feelings of stress and vulnerability creep up. I learned something about the Mess a month or so ago and it brought back a flood of emotion and pain again, like it just happened in April, not a year ago. I thought moving here would giving me a clean slate or a fresh start. In some ways it did. But I brought who I am with me and therefore some of my own personal messiness will always infect how I feel about things. The difference this time is that after surviving the Mess I know that somewhere in me I have the strength to survive anything else. I just wish I new how to access my own strength, but honestly I haven't a clue.

As the academic year draws to a close, I think it's fitting to share some of the things that I've learned this year:

1. Weather matters. I hated the relentless hot weather in SoCal. Turns out I hate a foot of snow each week for 10 weeks. It's oppressive and makes me feel so trapped and hopeless; like the heaviest weight is sitting on my heart and my soul. I love seeing spring again but I honestly don't know if I can last through another winter like the one we just had to get to spring. I cried a lot about the snow this year and I'm crying now remembering it.

2. I need to advocate more for my health. I don't go to doctors. I don't get physicals. Historically, I call doctors when my asthma acts up. They throw more medicine at me and say they don't know what to do and I've accepted this. Now that I am getting better medical care and have doctors who are advocating for me I regret following this previous plan of (in)action. The flip side is I have real mixed feelings about western medicine. I don't subscribe to the "lets kill you/make you sicker before we can make you better" theory of medicine. Do I like getting up 15 minutes earlier every day to fill my lungs with drugs and smoke a pipe so I can breathe? No. Do I like waking up and feeling like I am so ugly and hideous and raging with fury all because they're of side effects of a medication that's supposed to make me not feel like I am going to die? No. Do I like that every single time I go to a doctor now they've got nothing but bad news? NO.

3. I need to be challenged at work. I need to feel like I am responsible for something at work. I need to be held accountable to what I do (or don't do). I need to have a job where I can think, grow, be challenged, try new things and get pushed out of my comfort zone. I am none of these things at my job and I am miserable.

4. I need to make sleep a higher priority than I have been lately. If I am having a bad day I can almost guarantee that I have not gotten a decent night's sleep in recent memory. I need 8-9 hours of sleep per night to feel human. I need to advocate more for myself and say no to social engagements when I think I am heading on a down slope. It takes me about 3 nights of quality sleep to recover from one night of staying up too late.

5. I need a group of friends that I can be completely silly and crazy with. I play in a weekly trivia tournament with several other new faculty. It's basically 2-3 hours of sexual innuendo, hysterical laughter and mocking each other. Oh, and we also win quite a bit. I frequently don't feel like going (see #4 above) but I always feel better about life after going to trivia.

6. I also need friends that are different from my work friends. There isn't a lot to my city - we don't even have a coffeeshop or bookstore. There are few places to meet people other than work. As a result I end up working within 3 feet of my co-workers all day, every day and then socializing with them at night. (Censored, Censored, Censored).

7. I am a city girl. I need to live in a city. X is NOT A CITY. I need a place that's alive - with people, culture, activities, bookstores, coffeeshops, restaurants, shops, public transportation, ideas and everything else that's part of city living. My city depresses the hell out of me. I hate living out here. I hate driving/commuting more so I'm here until I find another job. I hate that on Friday nights the only thing happening in downtown is the prostitutes getting into a fight with one another. I hate that on Sundays, I can literally be the only person walking around downtown (my neighborhood) for hours. I don't like driving a good hour each way to get somewhere that resembles civilization. It's so depressing. I need more than this.

8. I need to indulge my creativity. Winter was so long and snowy and awful that I was literally trapped in my depressing city. Now that the weather has improved I took a cooking class in the "Big City" and it was awesome! Challenging, fun, cool people, yummy food, etc. I felt alive. I am waiting to see how our summer schedule shakes down before figuring out what (free) on-campus language class I take. I've also started something so hilarious (to me, but I am weird) and strange that I don't even know how to describe it. What started out as a joke between me and The Boy has become one of the few things that I do t hat uses a different side of my brain. Yes, it's no War and Peace but you try coming up with adventures of the world's most devious bear in 140 characters or less!

9. I need someone who accepts me for me, like unconditionally. I realize this is not a new need or want, but I'm listing it because when you've got it, it's awesome! :-)

10. I need more balance in exercise. I overdid it with the running in my 20s and I pay for it every single day. When running is ripped from my legs (this time due to stupidity) I get so freaking grumpy I want to move to a cave and not be near another person for the rest of my life. Clearly, a real mature way to deal with it. :-) People have been suggesting yoga to me for years and I am just now starting to think there might be something to it. Stretch the body and calm the mind? Yes - both, please!

Stay tuned for my next blog entry on how to achieve all these things. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (sorry - that's me laughing hilariously. I am so not wired to have everything be awesome at the same time)